


streetlights, calling us

by ghoulgy



Category: Monsta X (Band)
Genre: Angst with a Happy Ending, Discussions of death, Emotional Constipation, Explicit Sexual Content, Friends With Benefits, M/M, Miscommunication, Non-Linear Narrative, On-Again/Off-Again Relationship, Pining / Longing, Sea Monsters, Sea-longing, these tags... what goes on
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-12-03
Updated: 2018-12-03
Packaged: 2019-09-06 15:12:33
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,421
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16835137
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ghoulgy/pseuds/ghoulgy
Summary: Minhyuk, Kihyun decides, will miss him when his body aches, and then, after, not at all.





	streetlights, calling us

**Author's Note:**

> WOW ive been working on this since june hi
> 
> this has taken so many shapes since i started it. honestly most of the inspo came from when i was placing this lovingly in my drafts and i typed longing and [sea-longing](http://tolkiengateway.net/wiki/Sea-longing) came up and i went Huh whats that and so . tolkien made this fic what it is thanks tolkien. definitely took the notion and ran with it tho. mostly the same deal only in name.
> 
> this has a [playlist](https://open.spotify.com/user/husbandodestroyer/playlist/1FwE0UKprNPqDWRIZy6BhX?si=rQRjS5QsT3iSD8NEkIZXtA)
> 
> dont be afraid of the confusion. we are in this together

When Kihyun left home, he wasn’t gunning for an ending quite like this.

“Can you describe me?” he’s saying into his phone receiver, the ticket for the shitty zoo he’s at perched between two fingers, flimsy and insubstantial. 

“What?” is all he gets from Hoseok in return.

“You heard me, I know you did.”

Kihyun is not in Korea. Kihyun is not in Japan. Kihyun is not anywhere it would make sense for him to be at this moment. But, he is on the phone with Hoseok. And Hoseok’s voice is something to hold onto even when the world feels supremely fake. While he’s staring into the eyes of a polar bear the size of a well made fridge. 

Okay, maybe he’s not looking at the polar bear. Maybe he’s staring at his reflection in the glass that separates them. Maybe that’s the part that doesn’t seem real. 

“Where even  _ are  _ you right now?” Hoseok misses the point. 

“Can you foot the long distance bill next month?” Meaning  _ you can’t get in your car and find me.  _

“It’s 4 am here.”

Kihyun breathes hard out his nose. The polar bear shifts from one foot to another, then almost falls backwards down the hill in its enclosure. It manages to stay upright. Kihyun falls backward instead. 

In his left eye, the bear sits, growls, disappears. 

“It’s not 4 am here,” Kihyun provides. 

“You’re impossible.”

“Now you’re getting it,” he says. “Tell me about myself.”

There’s a long silence on the other end of the line and if he didn’t know any better, Kihyun would suspect Hoseok had fallen back asleep. But, because he knows better, he knows Hoseok wasn’t even asleep to begin with.

“Is everything alright?” Hoseok asks, finally, getting closer to the heart of the matter.

“See, I was hoping you’d be willing to help with that.”

And Hoseok does, like he always does, like he always will do. He helps.

“You’re the worst,” Hoseok says, “You love making me mad and I miss you. Please come home.”

Kihyun’s reflection smiles. He pulls his lips back wider, convinces himself he is who he sees. That this body is the one he is in. “I’ll be back soon.”

He won’t be, not for a while. 

The sickness still runs through his veins, even if it’s been years since he saw the sea, even if it’s out there, just to the East. 

“I saw Lee,” he says, then, because that’s what this call has to be about now. “Minhyuk.”

And maybe that’s what it’s been about this whole time. 

Hoseok inhales, then blows out so hard Kihyun can feel his breath in his ear. “What are the fucking chances, huh?”

Kihyun watches himself nod, then remembers he’s on a phone call. “He looked good.”

Hoseok scoffs. The polar bear reappears and this time, he’s got a fish in his mouth. “He’s always looked good.”

Kihyun has known Minhyuk for far too long to believe he’s only ever beautiful. He remembers, distinctly, the tearful McDonald’s trip that preceded graduation senior year of high school. He knows things. He doesn’t divulge them. Instead he says, “Yeah.”

Which is a fucking lie. 

“You sure you’re fine?” This is the tone of voice that means  _ if you lie to me I will take the next flight out of this god forsaken country.  _

Kihyun doesn’t lie. Says, “I’m sure,” because he’s fine. Because Hoseok’s on the phone with him, Hoseok is convinced he’s real and that’s enough. 

“So he’s there.” Hoseok picks back up after Kihyun stares as the polar bear tears a fish apart right beneath his chin. “And you’re there.”

“Fuck, I sure am.”

The fish is here, too, although it probably wishes it wasn’t.

“Good luck, then,” Hoseok says. “I’m going to bed.”

And the phone call ends.

* * *

“Take a left at this light,” Minhyuk says and Kihyun goes ahead and listens to him because he’s never really been able to tell Minhyuk no. 

He’s very aware that this is not the light he usually takes to get to Minhyuk’s house. He just can’t let on that he’s had these twists and turns memorized since the first night, back when they were both fresh out of drivers ed. They’re not that much older now. Time has done nothing but exacerbate the ache. 

He keeps moving, he watches Minhyuk come apart in the side view mirrors, watches the lights travel up his midsection, put him back together again. 

They don’t talk about this. They don’t talk about how Kihyun has eyes and Minhyuk has a mouth and how they’re already half one another. 

Minhyuk motions for Kihyun to pull over on a back road. 

There’s no street lights here, only trees and the moon. The lights come on in the car. 

“Lee, where are we?” Kihyun dares to ask. His voice does not come out as shaky as he feels.

“Does it matter?” Minhyuk asks, and well, yeah, it doesn’t, not really. It never has. 

They’ve both got it bad, beneath the waves. 

When Minhyuk unbuckles his seatbelt and slides his hand up the side of Kihyun’s jaw, kisses him slow and deliberate, that’s all he needs to know. 

This is before the worst part, before the best part, too. 

The night sky holds too many stars.

* * *

The bar they’re at was not made for casual conversation, the patrons are far too attached to screaming at the top of their lungs about a jukebox to pay any attention to the needs of anyone else. 

Still, Minhyuk manages to raise his voice over the commotion. 

“What are you doing here?”

He doesn’t mean the club, he probably means America, this state, this city. 

Kihyun wants to say he doesn’t know, like he would have, back when this was still a game they played.

“Vacation,” he says. It’s still a lie, but at least it’s a convincing one.

If Minhyuk catches on, he doesn’t mention it. 

They’d made these plans a week ago, just after Kihyun had spent a full hour observing Minhyuk through the smudged window of a coffee shop. Just before his trip to the zoo. 

“You want anything?” Minhyuk asks, voice light still, perfunctory politeness seeping into Kihyun’s pores, making him itch and squirm.

There’s a tired glint to Minhyuk’s eyes. He’s sweating, he looks ill, Kihyun watches as he wipes his palms on his thighs.

It was never supposed to be like this. “Gingerale,” Kihyun manages to choke out. “I’m driving.”

Then, the night is a monster that eats them both whole.

Minhyuk skirts around him like a kicked puppy, Kihyun never fully understands what it is about him that makes Minhyuk feel so unsafe.

He holds a cold glass in his hands, downs it, holds another. It’s just soda, but he’d been lightheaded beforehand.

“You look great,” Minhyuk rasps out. He’s taking shots off the counter.

One time, in college, before all this, or maybe after, Minhyuk took shots off Kihyun and gagged and spit and nearly threw up moments later. 

“It was hot,” he’d said. “You’re hot. Vodka’s gross.” 

Those words play over and over in Kihyun’s head now. He knows it must have been before, now, because back then Minhyuk could stand to look him in the eye. 

There’s a truckload of confusion swimming around in the air, muddling things up, finding its way in and out of Kihyun’s lungs in a frustrating rhythm. 

He doesn’t know what all of it means. Why Minhyuk is here, why he’s here, why they’re together again after everything that happened.

It feels too serendipitous to merely be a coincidence. For once, Kihyun lets himself believe in fate.

In Kihyun’s head, they don’t speak much, after that. That doesn’t stop Kihyun from imagining allowing his hands to find their way to their familiar spot at Minhyuk’s waist, doesn’t stop him from thinking about pulling him close, pressing his lips to the column of Minhyuk’s neck.

In this vision, Minhyuk exhales through his nose. 

“Is this what we’re here for?” Minhyuk would ask.

Imaginary Minhyuk’s voice is light, and it’s not reluctance as much as it might be disappointment. Kihyun can’t answer that, even in his own absent minded fantasy. He feels too much like he’s on fire again.

No one’s ever been able to make him feel the way Minhyuk makes him feel, he’s been searching for a long time.

In lieu of an answer, imaginary Kihyun just drags imaginary Minhyuk into his lap, fits his hands on his hips, kisses him on the mouth.

Feels his heart swell in time with the bass. 

Real Minhyuk tires of the silence. He’s jittery, shaking, sinking. “D’you remember,” he starts, one hand swirling his long island iced tea around in a cup, “that one time in college when I found that tire swing in the woods?”

Kihyun finds himself nodding, even though suddenly his body doesn’t feel like it’s his anymore. He remembers lacing his fingers between Minhyuk’s deep in the woods behind their dorm. Spending countless hours reading theory aloud, waiting for Minhyuk to tell him to stop. He never did. 

“You remember the last time I saw you?” Minhyuk asks after, because that’s exactly where Kihyun’s mind had gone, too.

Kihyun’s always wondered if there was something more he could have said that day. Something different. He’s cycled through it endlessly, picked out the most important bits.

In his head, it always goes like this:

Minhyuk has a bundle of letters in his hands, tied together with a rubber band that’s seen better days.

Kihyun’s sitting on the tire swing, his hands filled with nothing more than the ghost of Minhyuk’s.

_ Tell me to stay,  _ Minhyuk says.  _ Tell me you want me to stay. _

There are two ways to respond. The Kihyun in this memory chooses the worse one.

_ Who am I to want anything from you?  _ he asks.

They weren’t anything to each other until they were something and by then it was too late. Kihyun convinces himself he’s in love alone.

What he wants to have said is:  _ Take me with you in your carry on, in your cologne bottles and makeup remover, I want to be in the space between you and the rest of the world, in the atoms lining your skin. _

But even then, it’s meaningless.

He wishes the thought counted. The time machine in Kihyun’s temples breaks, sends him hurtling back to the present.

“Yeah, I remember,” Kihyun chokes out.

“Good.”

* * *

“What the fuck are you supposed to write in a letter you know some chucklefuck’s gonna dig up in 50 years?” Minhyuk complains for what must be the millionth time.

Kihyun’s trying to study.  _ Trying  _ being the key word. In reality, he’s probably skimmed over the same section of his textbook on the justice system too many times for him to have really gained anything from it.

Minhyuk’s laid out on Kihyun’s bed, his shirt only half on due to the heat. He’s distracting in lots of fun ways.

“Just write, like,  _ hope you assholes get to watch porn legally  _ or something.” 

“I don’t think they’ll let that fly.” 

In the heat of August, everything still seems so real. Kihyun eyes the peeling wallpaper, the sweat dripping down Minhyuk’s back - it’s sweltering, Kihyun is suffocating. 

He turns back to his books. 

“Say something about the present,” he says, pencil pressed hard to his lips. He‘s trying very hard not to say something stupid.

“You mean say something about you?” Minhyuk laughs but then there’s the heat and there’s the paper piling up around the two of them and Kihyun doesn’t - he can’t laugh. 

It’s then that Minhyuk fixes him with a stare, something indecipherable, something so much like home that it makes Kihyun ache. He feels it in his knees. 

“I can say lots of things about you,” Minhyuk says and really, that’s the end of it. 

  
  


It’s like wading through a swamp, or walking on fly paper, the way time ticks by while bullshitting your way through an exam. Kihyun’s almost done, maybe, hopefully, but he knows Minhyuk’s in the back of the room twice as fucked as the rest of them. 

So, they sweat it out together. 

Later, when Minhyuk falls dramatically onto Kihyun’s couch, he throws his arms out and declares he’s dropping out. 

Kihyun scoffs. “You’re not,” he says. “Otherwise you’d have quit your job, too.”

“Fuck you, what if I want to tutor full-time?”

Kihyun throws a pillow at Minhyuk’s head and misses. 

“You don’t.”

“Why are you right all the time? I hate it. I hate you.” 

But he doesn’t, he really doesn’t. 

The real question is of what there is beyond that. 

Back in high school, there were the times in Kihyun’s car, when they weren’t sure yet who they were as people. Minhyuk would pull Kihyun forward and Kihyun would always, always relent. They’d stopped, sometime between graduation and their first year at college together, but Kihyun had never forgotten what it felt like to wrap his hands around Minhyuk’s ribs, to come undone.

There is a part of Kihyun that knows someone like Minhyuk is not forever. That he’s flighty, scared of commitment, that he’ll always give so much, but always take the most in the end. 

So, for now, they’re friends. 

That’s all.

* * *

The longing comes and goes with the seasons. 

Kihyun’s never seen the ocean, but he wants to, and it’s the wanting that keeps him up at night, that has him sweating out of his skin. 

Minhyuk’s seen the ocean. 

He says it happened when he was little, that he’d peeked at it beneath his blindfold, that he’d been restless for months after, that the unquiet almost consumed him. 

Kihyun sees the sea in Minhyuk’s eyes, some days, undulating, like a harbinger of some new and wonderful magic. And in the summer, they’re both taken in by the longing. Kihyun kisses Minhyuk and they both fall into the idea of it: the unsound, the ocean, the denizens of the deep.

Kihyun is drawn to Minhyuk like he’s drawn to the sea. 

But the longing, it comes and goes.

* * *

“You’re the worst,” Minhyuk says, but it falls flat when he throws his head back and lets out a low groan at Kihyun’s hand making its way down his pants. 

“Am I?” Kihyun’s smiling, voice low and conspiratorial. 

“Absolutely,” Minhyuk nods, breathing hard. “The bane of my existence.” 

Kihyun sucks dark spots into the skin at Minhyuk’s hips. He marvels at how he gets to do this, of all the people in the fucking world, he’s the one who gets to make Minhyuk sound the way he does now. 

He jerks Minhyuk off slow, leaves him trembling and red. 

They go back to doing homework after that. Kihyun smacks the back of Minhyuk’s head when he asks if they have condoms.

* * *

There’s this wall that exists between the two of them, even now. 

Kihyun watches Minhyuk iron his dress shirt in preparation for work the next morning. Because he lives here, now, in America. Which explains why it’s been years since they’ve seen each other, and why everything about Minhyuk feels altered. 

They sit in silence, as the city moves beneath their feet. Kihyun wishes he knew what to say. 

Minhyuk had offered to let him stay. He’d known what he was getting himself into- the awkwardness, the tension. 

“You’ve seen it now, yeah?” he asks, and his eyes flit up to meet Kihyun’s for a second before he’s looking back down. 

“Last year,” Kihyun chokes out. 

Kihyun remembers it even now, how he’d felt the waves pour over his toes, how the sand had felt, pressed up close to him - how the water had filled his lungs, how it surged into him, and then out.

“Did it hurt?” Minhyuk stops pretending like he’s getting anything done, like he ever could with Kihyun standing inches away at his side. 

“You still haven’t been?” Kihyun feels like he should have known. 

Minhyuk shakes his head, a tiny, resolute motion. 

Now that Kihyun’s looking, he can see all the usual signs of the sickness- the bags under Minhyuk’s eyes, the shake that travels up and down his frame when the wind blows. 

“Minhyuk, it’s so beautiful,” Kihyun says, because he can’t help himself, because he’s programmed to. 

He moves to take Minhyuk’s hand in his, but he’s not quick enough- Minhyuk is pulling back, retreating into the kitchen. Perhaps he doesn’t want to hear about it, the sea. Kihyun follows. 

“Why are you… Can you tell me why you’re here, really?” He’s reaching into the fridge to pull out a six pack of terrible beer. He offers one to Kihyun, who refuses swiftly. 

It’s been a while since Kihyun’s had anything to drink, though. He’s terribly parched. 

“Finding myself,” Kihyun lies. 

He hesitates to tell Minhyuk that he’s not sure how he even got here. That he doesn’t remember the flight, the drive, anything. 

Minhyuk scoffs into his beer, smile hidden by the can. “You’ve always known who you are.” 

It’s hardly true, but Minhyuk really doesn’t need to know that.

“You, too,” Kihyun says, steps in close to catch Minhyuk’s wrist and pull the drink down and away from his face. “You’ve always known.”

Minhyuk stiffens at the contact, his eyes going wide. He swallows. “I knew, and then I left, and everything was different.”

Minhyuk’s eyes are on Kihyun’s lips. The whole room fills with water, they swim through it all. 

“Do you want to taste it?” Kihyun asks, letting Minhyuk go. 

He inhales shakily. “Yeah,” he says. “Yeah.”

Then they’re kissing, and it’s all salt.

Minhyuk drinks him in, desperate, panting already, and Kihyun knows the feeling. They want each other for different reasons, Kihyun just for the sake of it, Minhyuk because the temptation proves too great. 

Minhyuk’s hands are already at Kihyun’s hips, pulling him in, slotting their bodies together, and oh, how he missed this- the rashness of it all. 

“It’s like this,” Kihyun manages between kisses. “It feels like this.”

“Show me,” Minhyuk gasps into Kihyun’s neck.

He supposes he can do that. They don’t make it to the bedroom. 

Minhyuk backs Kihyun up against the counter, his hard on pressing heavy against Kihyun’s upper thigh. Arousal travels through him like an electric shock, goes from his toes up to his ears and then stays- dark, overwhelming. 

“Since when?” Kihyun asks, hands coming down to rid Minhyuk of his stifling shirt. “What made you want me again?”

“You can’t just touch me,” Minhyuk pouts, Kihyun can see it even under all his tousled hair, “and expect for nothing to happen.”

Once Minhyuk’s shirt is off, Kihyun can’t stop himself, had never really wanted to in the first place. It’s been too long, the warmth underneath Kihyun’s fingers beats in time with his own heart. He can feel it, when the goosebumps raise, when Minhyuk’s breath hitches as Kihyun’s fingers dust over a nipple.

He’s unbuttoning Minhyuk’s jeans with one hand and fumbling when Minhyuk swats Kihyun’s hand away. 

“You have no idea bad I wanted this,” Minhyuk says, and Kihyun thinks he might know, if it’s felt anything like what Kihyun’s gone through. 

But Minhyuk’s eyes are half glazed over and it’s not about Kihyun as much as it is about the sea, and the tasting, and the unraveling. 

Minhyuk’s undoing Kihyun’s fly, and then he’s on his knees and he’s open-mouthed panting for it, his lips red from all the biting. 

“Can I?” Minhyuk asks. 

Kihyun nods because he is nothing if not weak. 

Minhyuk breathes hot over Kihyun’s clothed erection, and god, it’s already too much. Kihyun whimpers pathetically when Minhyuk pulls him out of his boxers and licks a stripe up the side of his dick. He looks so good like this, down on his knees, blush high across his cheekbones. 

Kihyun can’t last long, not when Minhyuk’s debauched and desperate for it. 

He pulls at Minhyuk’s hair when he can feel the tension build to a peak, but Minhyuk doesn’t budge, just breathes faster through his nose and swallows. 

He’s so out of it, Minhyuk leans back in a daze and Kihyun can’t help but follow him over. 

They’re on the floor, now, and it can’t be comfortable, but when Kihyun kisses him he doesn’t seem to care at all. 

“Please,” he says into Kihyun’s mouth. 

And, yeah, this has got to be enough for now. Kihyun kisses Minhyuk fiercely, because it hurts and because he likes it. And he hopes.

* * *

Minhyuk has a bright red lollipop perched masterfully between his fingers. He looks at once like a child and a man with a dark mysterious past. 

Kihyun knows which one of those things he is most like.

“Written your letters yet?” Minhyuk asks, eyes never focusing on any part of the room for long. Flighty, he’s flighty, more than he’s ever been.

Which isn’t to say he’s not usually a twitching mess. 

“I’ve got better things to do,” Kihyun says. 

Which is true. Finals are coming up. Papers are due. Kihyun’s got to keep himself very busy to avoid doing things he will regret. 

But Minhyuk just  _ looks  _ at him and it’s hard not to at least think about doing things they’ll both regret. 

Minhyuk writes letters, he writes and he writes and he folds some up and puts them in envelopes, and others he tosses in the trash. Kihyun’s not a bad enough person to have dug them back out. 

That doesn’t mean he doesn’t want to. 

Now, Minhyuk’s writing something down on his hand and he’s got that lollipop in his mouth and Kihyun’s mind is not on homework anymore. 

“You wanna take a walk?” Minhyuk asks, maybe to break the silence, maybe because he’s growing bored. 

Kihyun nods, and then they’re in the woods and Minhyuk is leading Kihyun toward the lake. He backs himself up against a tree, leads KIhyun to stand in front of him, smiles brightly. 

“Do you miss us?” he asks, and Kihyun blinks slowly and tries to figure out whether or not this is a dream.

He takes a step back, but Minhyuk pulls him back in. 

“Please,” Minhyuk says, but it’s quiet, and the sound of it makes Kihyun lightheaded. “Say something.”

He doesn’t, knows he can’t, that if he does, the feelings he’s been trying so hard to stifle will bubble to the surface. He knows that if he opens his mouth, he will begin speaking and it will never stop. 

The silence stretches on, and Minhyuk’s face sours. 

“Just this,” Minhyuk says quickly, and he means how they’re inches apart. “Did you miss this?”

There’s the reminder that Minhyuk needs to know that Kihyun wants him, but he also needs to know Kihyun doesn’t want  _ him _ , just the idea of it all. 

Kihyun wants him. So, he doesn’t speak, he kisses Minhyuk for the first time in two years and falls all the way apart.

* * *

The time capsule is buried a few feet left of where someone was said to have heroically died for some cause. 

Kihyun doesn’t put anything in it, hadn’t really thought to. 

Minhyuk puts a single envelope inside, and when he does it his eyes are sparkling. 

He doesn’t mention all the hundreds of letters Kihyun’s seen him write. He doesn’t tell Kihyun what the letter says. 

Just lets him drown in the mystery.

* * *

It’s not until Minhyuk’s flight is booked that he tells Kihyun he’s going abroad.

They’re on the tire swing, Kihyun pretending to read and Minhyuk holding his hand and playing with his fingers. 

“I leave Thursday,” Minhyuk says after he drops The Bomb. “It’s supposed to be a really good program.”

He sounds  _ so _ excited, but he’s had months to live with the idea of leaving. Kihyun’s had seconds to grapple with the concept and all it’s doing is making it very hard for him to breathe. 

“You’re-” Kihyun starts and stops, takes a breath, begins again. “Since when have you known?”

Minhyuk purses his lips, this thing he does when he’s trying to seem nonchalant. “I got in at the beginning of this semester.”

It’s November. Kihyun’s birthday is in three days. 

It hurts. It hurts so bad Kihyun’s stomach leaves his body completely and he’s left middle-less and lost. He tries to muster any emotion that isn’t a complete and desperate heartbroken-ness. He finds one, it’s just certainly the wrong one. He runs with it. 

“Do I mean that little to you?” he asks, and Minhyuk isn’t holding his hand anymore, just sitting with both his hands in his backpack, reaching for something, maybe. 

His face drops and Kihyun thinks  _ good _ because maybe after this Minhyuk will understand what he does to people, how he makes them feel. 

“No, you don’t- it’s just I didn’t know how to tell you.”

There’s a stack of letters in Minhyuk’s hands. Kihyun doesn’t realize until later that they’re addressed to him. 

“What am I to you even?” Kihyun asks, because he wants to know, he wants to know so bad. Because he’s selfish and because he knows he’s going to say something he’ll regret soon and he’ll never be able to take it back. “Am I your friend? Are we friends?”

Minhyuk has the gall to look affronted. He scrambles to his feet. “Of course we’re friends, I- we’re friends.”

“And that’s all?”

Minhyuk opens his mouth to speak, then closes it, then opens it again. That’s probably all Kihyun needs to know. His walls come up too fast, he says something without thinking. 

“Well, I’ll miss the sex.” 

Minhyuk’s hands tremble, Kihyun can see them shaking in the wind, along with the whole forest. 

“Tell me to stay. Tell me you want me to stay.”

“Who am I to want anything from you?”

This is the last time Kihyun sees Minhyuk for a long while. Thinking back on it, he realizes he is so terribly parched.

* * *

When Kihyun wakes up, Minhyuk is still there. Maybe only because this is his house and Kihyun is a guest, but it’s still jarring. 

Outside, miles away, the ocean is rough and uninviting. It had been so calm when Kihyun went, completely enthralled and ready for its embrace. 

He’d never really understood Minhyuk’s fear. It was a rite of passage, something you  _ had _ to do to become an adult, a real adult. 

Hyungwon is scared, when they go. He is turned so far in upon himself that he’s practically unreachable. Hoseok is miraculously the most sane of them all. 

The sickness pulls them all to the sea, and it feels right, it feels wonderful. 

Sometimes, you don’t return from the sea. 

Kihyun’s cousin, he went when he turned 19, never came back. 

Minhyuk’s mother, 49 and terrified, never came back. 

Minhyuk’s been sick for a long time. Once Kihyun gets it, the thick malady of Sea-longing, he doesn’t know how Minhyuk stays away. 

It’s constant, the unsound, the ringing in your ears calling you home. And once you’re there, in the water, lungs, veins filled, it’s like finding yourself. 

It’s the beginning and the end of all, Kihyun knows, the moment he steps in, that they all return to the ocean, one day. 

When Minhyuk wakes up, he’s on Kihyun immediately. He’s so desperate for whatever relief Kihyun can provide. And Kihyun lets him take what he needs.

* * *

  
“I can’t do this anymore,” Kihyun says while Minhyuk tries and fails to get his pants off. 

Minhyuk rolls his eyes. “Yeah, you can.”

Kihyun shakes his head and takes a deep breath. “No, Minhyuk, I can’t keep doing this for you.”

“For me?” Minhyuk pouts, and he might still think this is playful, or at least he’s hoping it is because he keeps going at Kihyun’s pants like it’s a game. 

Kihyun grabs his wrist and Minhyuk stills.

“This hasn’t been about me,” he starts. “I know that, and it’s fine, I just can’t keep being your crutch.”

Minhyuk sits back on his heels, defensive. “You’re not my crutch.”

This is as close to crying over it as Kihyun’s been in a long time.

“I’ve always been your crutch, haven’t I?” he prods and Minhyuk flinches. 

“You’re my friend, we’re- we’re friends, friends help each other.”

Kihyun shakes his head. There is so much Minhyuk still doesn’t  _ get _ about himself. He’ll never understand how in love he makes people, how heartbroken he leaves them. “We’re not friends. I don’t want to be  _ friends _ . You get that, right? I’ve been in love with you for as long as I can remember and I’m just this… thing to you. You use me and that’s fine, it’s  _ okay _ , but I can’t anymore.”

The silence enters Kihyun’s lungs and swims around, leaves, comes back. 

They’re just breathing, but it’s so hard. 

“You never told me,” Minhyuk says finally.

If only it were as easy as just saying it. “I didn’t want to ruin things.”

He looks down at how pale Minhyuk’s hands are, at how red his fingertips have become. He’s still so sick, and Kihyun hates that he has to stop enabling all this. 

“I’m sorry.” Minhyuk’s moving closer, shaky, speaking fast. “This is my fault, I… should have told you I-”

“Don’t,” Kihyun puts his hand over Minhyuk’s mouth before he can say something truly stupid.

He pries Kihyun’s hand away angrily. “What?” 

The furrow between his brows grows. 

“Don’t say you love me. You don’t. If you did you wouldn’t be doing this to me.”

Minhyuk throws his hands up in frustration. “I’m taking what I can get.”

“You’re sick,” Kihyun states.

He’s sick and he’s sad and he’s been along for so long, but Kihyun’s here and he’s seen the ocean and he tastes like the salt of it. 

“And?” Minhyuk raises an eyebrow.

“Fuck you,” the vitriol hurts Kihyun’s own ears, “you know what I mean. I can’t be medicine to you.”

“I’ve been sick since I was six, that doesn’t change anything.”

But it  _ does _ .

“You’re scared,” Kihyun says, and he’s not realizing it as much as he is putting it into place. “And that’s fine, I’m just done having my feelings played with.”

Minhyuk says nothing, for a wonderful moment, and it looks like he might cry, like he might be sorry.

And then he’s speaking a million miles an hour, eyes wild. “You didn’t tell me to stay, maybe if you’d told me to stay-”

Minhyuk, Kihyun decides, will miss him when his body aches, and then, after, not at all.

* * *

There’s a stack of letters on the table when Kihyun gets home. He doesn’t touch them for two days, then, when Minhyuk doesn’t return, he thinks they might be for him. 

Every single one has his name on it. 

Kihyun is reading one when Minhyuk comes back around midnight, three days after he disappeared.

He’s dripping wet. 

He’s smiling.

* * *

  
  


[Letters to Yoo Kihyun, in no particular order]

  
  


[NOVEMBER 20XX

Your shoes are fucking ugly]

  
  


[JANUARY 20XX

Yoo Kihyun you are a bastard and I think you should try and kiss me again]

[FEBRUARY 20XX

Why won’t you kiss me again?????]

  
  


[JANUARY 20XX

All these letters have been jokes but I keep writing. 

Do you know how stupid you look when you do homework?

So stupid. 

You’re so incredibly stupid.]

  
  


[OCTOBER 20XX

You hurt. You hurt so bad. 

I’d do it, you know. If you asked me to. I’d stay. I’d fling myself into the Pacific, I’d let myself get all eaten up. 

You  _ hurt. _ ]

  
  


[NOVEMBER 20XX

I think I might be selfish. 

I love you]

  
  


[DECEMBER 20XX

I don’t think about you a lot, but I did today, while I was out by that lake you almost pushed me into in middle school. I thought about how people have to look at you like they want nothing more than your attention. There’s a breeze the comes up strong through the trees if you stand in just the right spot, by the road just outside of town. I am acutely aware that this is where you kissed me in college, your hands shaky and unsure. I close my eyes and I wait for it. 

When we would drive up through the mountains where there were no streetlights, sometimes all I wanted for you to do was look at me, even though I knew you needed to keep your eyes on the road. I don’t think of you often, but when I do, it’s that.]

  
  


[DECEMBER 20XX

Fuck, Yoo Kihyun.]

**Author's Note:**

> WOMP!!!!!!!!!!!!!! WELL!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! ive decided ill never be fully happy with anything i write so i might a well post before i tear it apart in my head for months!!!!!!!!!
> 
> I HAVENT WRITTEN PORN IN LIKE TWO YEARS LMFAO SORRY I TRIED
> 
> please let me know what you thought if i dont get comments i literally . Literally. die
> 
> catch me on twt @ booseoks


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